We are going to have to scrap and fight for every single point we can get our hands on - Darren O'Dea

After nine defeats from their opening ten league matches, Dundee find themselves bottom of the Premiership table with a measly three-points but luckily for the club, they have not yet been cut adrift because Motherwell, Hamilton and St Mirren have also suffered a bad start to their seasons.

Our season has a distinct lack of positives around it so far and sadly the fact that we are still in touching distance of ninth place is the only plus sign that seems to be going for us right now.

Despite this, Darren O’Dea can’t take any comfort when looking at the league table and seeing there are other teams in our position and struggling because unless this squad start picking up points, they could very well disconnected from the rest of the teams very quickly.

“I am not interested in looking at the league and thinking we’re OK” said O’Dea.

“We can’t look at the table and take consolation from the fact we are not detached. We are miles away from the amount of points we wanted at this stage, 10 games in. If you keep looking at the table, losing games but thinking you are OK it only takes a week or two and then you’re not OK any more.

“You can be detached very quickly in this league so nobody here is looking at the table thinking we are all right. You can’t be sitting here thinking that we will click one day and suddenly blow a team away.

“That’s not going to happen. We are going to have to scrap and fight for every single point we can get our hands on.

“Once we do that then slowly and surely we can start looking at playing our way out.”

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It looked to be the same old story for Dundee when Hibs took the lead with less than a minute gone after Genseric Kusunga headed the ball into his own net then a Ryan Porteous header doubled the home teams lead after half an hour.

Normally that would be game over for Dundee but a Kenny Miller strike on the stroke of half time and a beautiful goal from Paul McGowan minutes into the second half earned the Dark Blues what looked like an unlikely point.

“What Impressed me probably was the start,” said O’Dea to DeeTV after the match.

“I know it sounds strange but until you’ve been in that position, you don’t know how hard it is to take when you’ve set up all week and trained the way we have all week and then a goal like that happens, listen its stuff we can prevent but it’s a bit of a freak goal.

“It can knock the stuffing out of you but I actually though probably the first 25 minutes was the most control we had over the game, probably half hour even. They get their second goal which I think knocked us off our stride then but then again, we showed character in abundance. Ralphie (Nathan Ralph) does brilliantly down the side where he wants to be and wants the ball to be and we get a goal.

“I think we sensed it then the feeling just changed both with us and them (Hibs). I’ve played in front of big crowds. It’s a fantastic atmosphere here (Easter Road), great stadium and really loyal supporters but when you’re playing in front of ten people and they groan, it makes a little bit of noise but when you’re in front of 20,000 people and they groan, it makes a much bigger noise, which obviously seems like they are turning on them.

“And it does feed to the players some time and we sensed that, they sensed that, and it turned into a great start to the second half. I’m proud of the players for the character they have shown, everyone in the dressing. We’ll take it. It’s a good point away to Hibs.

“I thought defensively we were good and we look a massive threat going forward so as a team I thought we were excellent.

Saturdays goalless draw may have been a drab affair for the punters that paid to get in but it did end Dundee’s recent run of defeats against an Ayrshire side who have recently turned the corner since the arrival of new manager Steve Clarke.

He said: “I felt on Saturday, against a real good side in terms of their organisation to go away from home and get big results with Jones and Boyd up front, we contained them for a lot of the game.
“We’re pleased with the point, I’m really happy for them because they’ve been working hard to keep a clean sheet.
“Now we need to start building and scoring goals that get us three points rather than one.”

Meanwhile, skipper Darren O’Dea is set to serve a two-match suspension after being given a red card near the end of Saturdays match with McCann confessing he had no complaints about his captain getting an early bath.

So far this season in the league, O’Dea has picked up eight yellow and two red cards.

“Darren is probably looking at three weeks now, going by the scan." McCann told the media.
“He has been properly assessed and it is a bit of a blow.
“It’s his knee. He took a knock on it against Hamilton and we’ve got the scan back.
“It suggested it was a wee injury to one of his ligaments so we had to make sure and that is the case.”
With O'Dea ruled out, it will more than likely mean that the young paring of Kerr Waddell and Jack Hendry will face Aberdeen at the centre of defence.
Randy Wolters also looks set to miss tomorrows game but Roarie Deacon has just returned to training so may feature at some point.

“I said I was going into the Derry but that was weeks ago,” admitted O’Dea.

“It’s been an up and down season and it’s been tough on the players because we give everything but the fans have always been here.
“They have been here before me and they will be here after me.
“It was a bit of relief and I decided ages ago if I had scored I was going in.

On the caution he received for his celebration, O’Dea declared: “I took the booking but it was well worth it.”

The Irishman had only scored one penalty in his career previously to Saturdays goal and it also came in a Dark Blue jersey and against the same opponents.

The Irishman said: “I have hardly taken a penalty in my career so it’s a bit new to me,”

“I thought beforehand: ‘If there is any doubt in my head then I am going to leather this.’
“To be honest with you, for the first one away at Ross County there was a bit of pressure. In fact, there was no one on the pitch who had taken a penalty so there was a bit of responsibility on me to take it.
“This time, I was sure there were other people who would have taken it but I scored the last one so was happy to take it again.
“I think every footballer should be able to take one.
“Tom Hateley is the normal set-piece taker so he might have taken it if he had been on the pitch but I was happy to score.
“It was great and it was what we deserved.”

But Dundee skipper Darren O’Dea admits he felt even lower after Tuesday’s 2-1 reversal at Ross County.
The experienced defender’s logic is simple — when you don’t get what you should from a game, defeat is so much harder to take.
“It maybe sounds strange to say it but the defeat on Tuesday hurt a little bit more than the one against Aberdeen,” he said.
“You come off the pitch after a game like Friday deflated, of course you do, and we were all really down.
“But you know you deserved nothing from the game. We deserved the doing we got.
“In Dingwall we knew we deserved to take something and that’s why it hurts more.
“But for a contentious decision right at the end we would have taken a point, so getting nothing was hard to take.”
He was referring to Mark O’Hara’s last-minute challenge on Michael Gardyne, Dundee felt was a fair one, but for which referee John Beaton pointed to the spot, leading to Liam Boyce’s dramatic winner.
What happened at the other end seconds later, and ended with Danny Williams being red-carded after a bust-up involving several players, only heightened O’Dea’s sense of injustice.
As well as putting that behind him, though, he is able to take a wider view and extract positives from the experience.
“Mark O’Hara gets booked for diving when we go up the pitch.
“I know some of the lads at Ross County and I was chatting to them at the end. They knew that was more of a penalty than the one they got for Mark’s challenge.
“As hard as that was to take, as an experienced pro I can look at the bigger picture and see we stood up and weren’t hiding during the game.
“That’s very important for me because, listen, it is something we can take going forward and build on.
“Whatever anybody said about us after last Friday’s performance against Aberdeen, I don’t think anyone said anything harsher than the things we said to ourselves. We questioned ourselves.
“But on Tuesday the fight was there, the desire and the spirit.
“These things should never been in question in football but sometimes they are, and it was important we showed them.
“We should have come down the road from Ross County with at least a point but we didn’t and we move on. We have to go and prepare for the next game.”
To say the past month and a bit has been difficult for O’Dea and his team-mates is an understatement.
Five defeats in a row, 14 goals conceded and just two scored has sapped morale and confidence.
He, though, believes the spirit displayed up north shows Dundee can halt the slide and be safe come the end of the season.
“We are going to be in the bottom half, so six of our last seven games are going to be against bottom-six teams because we have Hamilton as well as Hearts before the split.
“If you look through those teams they are much the same and everyone is fighting. The bare minimum is that we match the fight the rest show.
“If we do, then I definitely believe we are good enough to be winning the games we need.
“It’s not going to be about nice football and performances don’t matter, only results do.”

The Dark Blues produced their worst performance for many a day as they were thrashed 7-0 at home by Aberdeen on Friday night.
It was their heaviest defeat since 1971 and absolute torture for the fans who had to sit and watch until they decided their living room or the pub was a better bet.
Combined with Saturday’s results involving the other Premiership bottom six teams, the hammering at the hands of the Dons has left Dundee right in the thick of a relegation battle.
If they can’t somehow get the heads up for tomorrow night’s crucial clash with Ross County in Dingwall then it will look like they are in freefall at exactly the wrong time of the season.
Manager Paul Hartley knows that and O’Dea certainly knows that.
The Irish defender was absolutely scathing about Friday’s horror show and, to be honest, you couldn’t argue with a word of his brutal assessment.
He won’t be forgetting the seven Aberdeen goals any time soon and neither will his teammates.
The Dundee skipper said: “It was weak and that is a night we will all remember for years to come.
“I hope everyone had sleepless nights after that.
“It was just embarrassing for that to happen at home and on live TV.
“To be honest, if that were a Sunday league game it would feel just as embarrassing.
“There is no point in pointing fingers, collectively it was everyone (to blame) because you don’t lose 7-0 if only two or three are off it.
“We folded – that’s what happened.
“When you lose a game like that it’s not your ability that is in question it’s your character.
“That for me is unacceptable because if your character is being questioned then it’s an embarrassment.
“Results like that can knock the stuffing out of the team if you’re weak.
“What you have to do is show you have the b**** to come back from it.
“We’ll find out on Tuesday up at Ross County who has what is required to fight back.”
O’Dea’s damning indictment continued, with the former Celtic man claiming that he knew the Dark Blues had given up the ghost long before the end of the match.
He said: “I wouldn’t want to be on a night out with that team and for a fight to break out.
“If anything kicked off I wouldn’t want to be there.
“You look around and you look for a bit of fight and people rolling up their sleeves.
“Even at 4-0 down you have to show it but there was none.
“Collectively, there was nothing and I’m bringing myself into that too. I’m not pointing fingers at anyone.
“I can’t think of another game where I have looked around a pitch and thought: ‘We are dead, we are finished here.’
“You just want off the pitch.
“It was damage limitation and we didn’t even manage to do that well.”
There will now be, in O’Dea’s words, a serious “test of character” tomorrow against fellow strugglers County.
He was asked if Dundee were now in relegation trouble and he replied: “Yeah, probably.
“It’s a test of character now and I like that.
“I don’t like the fact that it has to be tested but that’s the way it’s going to be.
“We have to stand up or lie down.
“If you want to lie down you wouldn’t want another game so soon but, for me, I want to go again.
“It won’t get any easier because we have Ross County then Hearts so we’ve got tough games coming up.
“To be honest, they are all tough and we have to be much, much better.”

The Dens manager made the comment following his team’s desperately disappointing defeat and display against St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park on Saturday.
Dundee never recovered from the loss of two early goals with O’Dea candidly confessing that they were completely outfought by Saints.
However, with a match against Celtic looming large on the horizon on Sunday at Dens, the players simply have to pick themselves up.
O’Dea said: “Yes, the manager’s right. When you go from the high of beating Rangers at home and then even better against Motherwell . . .
“We are a strange team at times. The worst thing as a manager is when you don’t know what you are going to get and that’s not good enough.
“It’s nothing to do with effort or desire but anyone who is surprised that they were going to get a tough game here needs a reality check.
“It is always difficult here as they are a very good team. They know exactly what they are doing.
“We were off it and got punished for it.
“Sometimes when you come off the pitch and you have been beaten you can accept it a little bit if you have been outplayed.
“But we were outfought and that’s hard to take.
“If you have competed to your best ability and are beaten by good play . . . but we were beaten because we weren’t ready for a fight and they were.
“Look, we have a couple of tough games coming up but in a strange way it might be good for us to play against two good footballing teams in Celtic and Aberdeen.
“So we need to pick up quickly and cannot feel sorry for ourselves as these are top teams.”